r the flight of the herd.

The spear was thrown, but it was just as the old man was making a bound,
and though it struck, its power of penetration was not sufficient, in an
oblique blow, to make it pierce the tough skin, and to the boys' horror
they saw the blunt wooden weapon fall to the earth. The next instant
the kangaroo was upon Shanter, grasping him with its forepaws and
hugging him tightly against its chest, in spite of the black's desperate
struggles and efforts to trip his assailant up. There he looked almost
like a child in the grasp of a strong man, and to make matters worse,
the black had no weapon left, not even a knife, and he could not reach
the ground with his feet.

Poor Shanter had heard the horses coming up, and now in his desperate
struggle to free himself, he caught sight of Raphael.

"Boomer--mumkull!" he yelled in a half-suffocated voice. "Mumkull--
shoot, shoot."

The gun was cocked and in the boy's hands, but to fire was impossible,
for fear of hitting the black; while, when Norman rode close up, threw
himself off his horse, and advanced to get a close shot, the kangaroo
made vicious kicks at him, which fortunately missed, or, struck as he
would have been by the animal's terrible hind-claw, Norman Bedford's
career would, in all probability, have been at an end.

Then, in spite of Shanter's struggles and yells to the boys to shoot--to
"mumkull" his enemy--the kangaroo began to leap as easily as if it were
not burdened with the weight of a man; and quickly clearing the distance
between them and the water-hole, plunged right in, and with the water
flying up at every spring, shuffled at last into deep water.

Here, knowing the fate reserved for him, Shanter made another desperate
struggle to escape; but he was wrestling with a creature nearly as heavy
as a cow, and so formed by nature that it sat up looking a very pyramid
of strength, being supported on the long bones of the feet, and kept in
position by its huge tail; while the black, held as he was in that
deadly hug, and unable to get his feet down, was completely helpless.

Without a moment's hesitation, Norman waded in after them to try to get
an opportunity to fire; but the kangaroo struck out at him again with
all the power of its huge leg, and though it was too far off for the
blow to take effect, it drove up such a cataract of water as deluged the
lad from head to foot, and sent him staggering back.

The next moment the object of